Introduction: Forensic and clinical psychology is slowly starting to take human-animal-interaction into consideration as relevant factor to evaluate the mental health status of a human. Therefore there a several questions which need to be asked to complete that picture: What is the effect of a deviant human-animal-interaction on the animal? What are the predictors for a problematic human-animal-interaction from the human side? The review was conducted to give an overview of the current state of research concerning dysfunctional types of human-animal-interaction and assumed predictors for these behaviours.
Methodology: Using the PRISMA Method (Moher et al., 2010) studies published between 2007 and 2018 in psychological, veterinary and forensic literature were collected und reviewed in two steps. In a first step definitions and classifications were reviewed to define the topics of part 2 which was a second literature to identify predictors for human-animal-interaction “that went wrong”.
Main Findings: Published research shows several areas of malfunction in human-animal-interaction. Only a very limited number of studies for example is published about abandonment, which is associated with traumatic experiences for animals (Baquero et al., 2017). Obviously the scientific community pays close attention to the link between animal abuse and violent interpersonal in behaviour (eg. Krienert et al., 2012). Current considerations refer as well to deviant sexual preferences like zoophilia acting as a predictor for enganging in future child sexual abuse (Abel, 2008). Finally a nexus between failured attachments in early life and resulting inadequate coping strategies to interact with people in adulthood in animal hoarding cases are debated (Steketee et al., 2011). Despite these findings there were no precise concepts concerning dysfunctional human-animal-interactions or related predictors found.
Principle Conclusions and Implications for the Field: Although many studies deal with dysfunctional human-animal-interactions classifications, definitions or predictors for these behaviours are rarely discussed. Hence future research should concentrate on predicting factors for deviant human-animalinteractions and on the potential impact of these on interpersonal relationships? Moreover: What kind of skill set should a pet owner possess to prevent these dysfunctional types of human-animal-interaction?